Trial on Clinton Disbarment Is Unlikely Before Term Ends

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: October 27, 2000

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26—
It now appears almost certain that a trial in Little Rock, Ark., over whether President Clinton should be disbarred will not take place until well after he leaves office, lawyers involved in the case say.

Lawyers from the Arkansas bar association who are trying to strip Mr. Clinton of his law license thought they had had an agreement with the trial judge to schedule the trial for this year. But a state court official said today that Judge Leon Johnson had decided not to schedule the proceeding this year. The official, who asked not to be named, said Judge Johnson believed he already had enough cases on his schedule for the rest of the year and would not make any effort to squeeze in the Clinton disbarment trial.

Mr. Clinton had hoped to delay the proceeding until after he left office. Associates said he felt that a trial on his fitness to practice law would mar his final few months in office.

Judge Johnson's apparent decision further complicates the timing because he is scheduled to leave the bench on Jan. 1, meaning the case will have to be assigned to another judge. The issue of who is qualified to preside at the trial has proved a problem in the past as most of the judges on the Pulaski County Circuit Court had recused themselves because of ties to Mr. Clinton or to the local Republican Party.

The person designated to replace Judge Johnson, Willard Proctor Jr., is a newly elected judge whom Mr. Clinton appointed to an administrative post when he was governor. That judge would probably recuse himself, as have at least seven other judges. Judge Johnson said he had no known ties to Mr. Clinton and was appointed to the bench by Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican.

Marie-B. Miller, the lawyer who is bringing the case against Mr. Clinton, declined to comment on Judge Johnson's decision. But she noted that she complained in a letter to Judge Johnson in August that he was needlessly delaying the case.

In the letter, Ms. Miller said the bar association believed that the judge's ''decision to treat this case as any other case on the docket causes us serious concern.''

David E. Kendall, Mr. Clinton's lawyer, declined to comment.

In her letter to Judge Johnson, Ms. Miller expressed surprise that the judge had not altered his calendar to accommodate the case.

She wrote that if Judge Johnson did not make room for the Clinton case before he left the bench, ''the judicial system will be mired in the process of selecting another judge to try the case. The disposition of the case will be delayed and while such a prospect may be acceptable to Mr. Kendall, it is a prospect we believe should be avoided.''

Judge Johnson has not yet responded to Ms. Miller's letter, but the court official said the judge would set a date to hear the Clinton case only if something major fell off his calendar. The officials said that that would be known by the middle of November but that it was unlikely.

The disbarment proceedings were triggered by two complaints, one filed by a conservative legal group and the other by Judge Susan Webber Wright of Federal District Court, who presided over Paula Corbin Jones's sexual misconduct lawsuit against Mr. Clinton. In his January 1998 deposition in that case, Mr. Clinton testified under oath that he had not engaged in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern.

When Mr. Clinton later acknowledged that he had had an inappropriate intimate relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, Judge Wright fined him $90,000 for contempt of court and referred the case to the disciplinary committee, which eventually voted to seek his disbarment.